


Never Running Away Again

by grapefruitsnacks



Category: The Politician (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff, Getting Together, Humor, LGBTQ Female Character, Pregnancy, because they both deserved better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 11:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24968656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapefruitsnacks/pseuds/grapefruitsnacks
Summary: An AU where Alice does not go back to Payton, Astrid keeps her baby, and Alice and Astrid decide to try the whole girlfriends-and-mothers thing. Predictable romance and chaos ensues.
Relationships: Alice Charles/Astrid Sloan
Comments: 11
Kudos: 56





	Never Running Away Again

**Author's Note:**

> While Astrid’s speech about how not wanting kids doesn’t make her any less of a woman was one of the best parts of The Politician season 2, I can’t stop thinking about how amazing it would be to see Astrid and Alice pregnant at the same time. And so, this fic was born (pun intended).
> 
> This starts at the beginning of the last episode of season two (Election Day).

_Less than a month pregnant_

Alice hears Astrid’s footsteps before she sees her. She’s wearing one of those long white nightgowns they force the girls to wear at the retreat, and she’s clutching a tan blanket to her chest. Even though Alice knows better, with the white nightgown and the clutched blanket, Astrid looks almost angelic. Innocent. 

Astrid kneels at the foot of Alice’s bed. She whispers so as to not wake the other girls, “Alice. I can’t do this anymore.”

“Me neither. This place is driving me insane.” Alice scoots over on the bed, silently signaling, just as she had every night since they came here, for Astrid to lie down next to her. Astrid complies, hugging her blanket to her chest like a child a teddy bear. They face each other. The bed is so small, their faces are almost touching. At first, this was an odd adjustment; mandatory cuddle time after their repeated threesomes usually happened between Payton and Astrid or Payton and Alice. It felt odd for the two of them to cuddle. Now, though, it would feel odd not to have Astrid next to her.

“What are we going to do?” Alice asks.

Astrid toys with the edge of her blanket instead of meeting Alice's eyes. “You could get back together with Payton.”

“Are you asking me to?” Alice asks. For some reason, she hopes that Astrid is not.

“Do you want to?” Astrid retorts, her eyes still avoiding Alice’s. Just like Alice had a preferred response, Alice is pretty sure Astrid has one too. She’s just not sure what it is.

So, Alice answers honestly. “I don’t know. It’d be nice for my child to have a father. Children with fathers are much more likely to grow up to become a well-adjusted adult.”

This is an honest answer, technically, but it carefully avoids further truth. Astrid continues playing with loose threads on her blanket, and while her face is passive and blank, Alice thinks she sees disappointment lingering in the back of her eyes. This prompts Alice to tell Astrid everything, even though she's never told another soul this before. It's hard to keep anything back when doing so will result in Astrid's disappointment.

Even though Astrid's eyes pointedly avoiding Alice's, Alice still focuses on Astrid's hands rather than attempting to gain eye contact. Watching her hands is easier than watching her eyes when she is spilling her guts. Her voice quieter than it had been throughout this conversation of whispers, Alice says “But when I had to help that sheep give birth yesterday, I started thinking that going to medical school might be for me.”

Astrid blinks pointedly. “That sheep died in childbirth.”

“I know. It was very interesting to watch the first few stages of death firsthand.” Alice reaches across the narrow divide between their bodies, pries Astrid’s hand from its grip on her blanket, and holds her hand, filling the chasm between them. Astrid keeps her hand still, not squeezing back or even responding, but she hasn’t pulled back, so Alice knows she doesn’t mind. “If I go back to Harvard, what would you do?”

“You mean, would I go through with the pregnancy,” Astrid says emotionlessly, reading between the lines of Alice’s words in the way only she can.

“It wouldn’t make you any less of a woman if you didn’t want kids,” Alice says softly.

“I know that,” she scoffs, rebuffing Alice’s attempt at intimacy. Astrid hesitates, and Alice can almost see a similar dilemma play out in her mind. Spill her secrets or keep them close to her heart. Alice hopes that Astrid, like Alice, believes that they are close enough for the former.

Apparently, Astrid thinks so because she says, “I never wanted kids. Even with River. And I still don’t want my whole life to revolve around being a mother because I think I’d take a handful of pills and drink a bottle of red wine until I fade into oblivion if that ever happened. But I’m not in high school now, and maybe being a mother might not be the worst thing in the world.” She reconsiders her words. “It might actually be something I want.” She pauses, then adds, “Especially if I wasn’t alone.”

Alice thinks she understands Astrid, but she’s not quite sure. She says, her voice barely a breath, “Astrid-”

“Will you do it with me? We can get an apartment in Cambridge and you can go to medical school and I might be a bitch sometimes but we can make it work. I know we can. You can make anything work.” Astrid lowers her voice to a whisper. “We don’t need Payton for this.”

Alice is sure Astrid can feel her heart pounding as her hand is still right next to Alice’s heart. “Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?”

“More like the mother to my child,” Astrid says, her eyes radiating vulnerability.

Alice sees a future in a small house with a white picket fence where two little kids with blonde hair run about. Alice, in a doctor's white robe, cooks breakfast, yelling that at the kids that they’re going to be late to school. Astrid, in some badass suit that is tailored to perfection, brews coffee for herself and Alice, sliding Alice her cup across the counter before kissing her on the cheek.

“Let’s run away,” Astrid presses. “To our future.”

Alice nods once and stands. “Let’s get the fuck out of here."

They creep out of the building, Alice clutching Astrid’s arm because she’s never letting go. Once they’re out of the building and crossing a field on their way to some semblance of civilization, Astrid says, “I’m not changing any diapers, you know.”

“You have to change diapers.”

“They’re gross.”

“I’ll do 60%, you do 40%.”

“90:10,” Astrid counters.

“80:20.”

Astrid considers this. “Deal.”

****  
 _Two months pregnant_

They get a condo in Cambridge, right near Harvard. It’s small, with only two bedrooms, but Alice likes it because it has a lot of natural light and “character.” Astrid likes it because there’s a Chinese takeout place right underneath the apartment, which means she’ll never have to cook for her kids.

Astrid gets a low-level job at an office, but she is working her way up at unprecedented speeds due to her mostly-legal means. Alice goes back to Harvard, and she is studying to become a doctor.

They share a queen-sized bed, and their sex life is amazing. Alice says it’s because girls actually know how to give another girl an orgasm and that Payton was holding them back. Astrid says it’s because the baby hormones are making them crazy and Alice’s boobs bigger. Whatever it is, Alice feels bad for their neighbors.

They also share a gynecologist and schedule all their appointments back-to-back. Co-pregnancy is just something all queer girls should do, Alice decides.

Two months in, they go for an ultrasound. Alice is first. She lies on the bed as their doctor rubs a blue jelly on her belly and presses a probe to it. A fuzzy image of Alice's uterus appears on a screen next to her. 

“Do you want to know the sex?” the doctor asks.

Alice nods. “I’m pretty sure it’s a boy, though.”

The doctor raises her eyebrows. “Usually mother’s intuition is a falsehood, but I am impressed. Congratulations, you two. You’re having a boy.”

Even though Alice doesn’t really care about the sex of her child as sex and gender are totally different things and the sex will not dictate how she will treat her child or how her child will act, tears spring into her eyes. She knows just one more thing about her child, and that makes her so unbelievably happy.

Alice cleans off, and then, it is Astrid’s turn. Astrid stares up at the ceiling with a blank, almost foreboding, expression.

Alice knows firsthand that the jelly is very cold and uncomfortable, so she grabs Astrid’s hand. Astrid doesn’t respond. She must be really nervous, Alice realizes, so she tries to make a conversation. “What do you think the sex is?”

“No idea,” Astrid says.

“Just guess,” Alice coaxes, trying to get Astrid into this moment just a little bit more.

“Fine. Boy.”

It feels like when they were trying to cheat their way out of rock-paper-scissors. Alice is sure the reason Astrid picked boy is because boy was the winning hand for Alice. But they are not competitors like they would be in rock-paper-scissors, and Alice suddenly hates this comparison.

“Congratulations!” the doctor says. “It’s a girl!”

Alice laughs tearfully and squeezes Astrid’s hand. Astrid barely glances at the monitor.

When the session is done, Alice pulls Astrid to a bench right outside the building. The doctor’s office is outside of town, and all they face is a parking lot and a couple pathetic trees. Astrid crosses her arms, trying to appear stubborn and tough but really looking like a petulant child. “Admiring the landscape?” 

Alice scoffs, annoyed at Astrid pretending that everything is okay. “Don’t you care about our children?”

Astrid stares off into the distance with a hard look in her eyes. “Of course I care,” she says without emotion.

“Then why didn’t you look at the sonogram?” Alice asks. It pains her to ask Astrid this. She knows Astrid cares about their future children. Astrid started drinking decaf coffee as soon as she learned that an excess of caffeine isn’t great for the fetus, and giving up coffee is basically like tearing off a limb for Astrid. Astrid pretended it was no big deal, but Alice knows the extent of her caffeine addiction.

The knowledge that Astrid really does care almost makes the fact that she can’t even look at the sonogram hurt more. Alice had thought going into today’s ultrasound that Astrid would share Alice’s excitement. When she didn’t, when she was apathetic, it hurt. There must be a legitimate reason for her apathy, but Alice’s hopes were still crushed. Crushed hope is, perhaps, the worst feeling ever.

“I looked,” Astrid claims, arms still crossed and eyes still distant and hard.

“You didn’t,” Alice replies, staring at Astrid almost pleadingly. She needs to know the reason. If she knew the reason, then it wouldn’t hurt as badly that she didn’t look in the first place. Then, she could empathize.

Astrid tightens her grip on her own ribs. She says, her voice clipped, “Fine. I didn’t. I guess I’m just coldhearted or missing the mom-gene or whatever. You should have known this before you agreed to have these children with me.”

Most people mistake Astrid’s clipped voice as her fighting tone. But Alice knows her and knows that this is the voice she knows when she’s deflecting, when she’s really just terrified out of her wits.

Alice thinks she gets it. Her crushed hope fades as realization hits. Despite Astrid’s hard gaze, Alice grabs Astrid’s hand. Astrid looks to Alice, acknowledging her for the first time in this conversation in surprise. Her eyes are still hard, but at least Alice got a reaction. “There is no mom gene or mother’s intuition. I got the sex because I had a fifty percent chance. That’s all. It was just statistics. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to be a better mother.”

Astrid takes a moment to respond. Her voice has lost the clipped quality, and she just sounds disappointed in herself. “You looked at the sonogram and started crying. All I thought was that it looked like something out of a horror movie. I’m too cold to be a mother.”

Alice squeezes Astrid’s hand. “You’re going to be an amazing mother. Being cold doesn’t mean you won’t be a good parent.”

“It does. Look at my parents.”

“Astrid, you love harder than anyone I’ve ever met. You’re cold, yes, but that’s what will make you such an amazing mother. You know how to say no, how to call people out on their bullshit, and that’s half of what being a mother is. Coldness isn’t a weakness, and it doesn’t detract from your ability to love or parent. Because you’re cold _and_ you love hard. And loving hard is really all you need to be a good parent.”

Alice remembers why the rock-paper-scissors analogy bothered her so much. “Besides, we’re in this together. We balance each other out, and that’s why we’re both going to make amazing mothers.”

The hard edge to Astrid’s eyes fade, and she makes circles on Alice’s hand with her thumb. She’s quiet, processing and rubbing circles. “Can I see the sonograms?”

Alice bites back a smile. She got through to Astrid. “Of course.”

Alice reaches into the manila folder tucked under her arm and pulls out the two sonograms. She holds the pictures between them. “This is the male,” Alice says.

Astrid stares at the picture as if she’s expecting the fetus to suddenly move. “I don’t see any defining male genitalia.”

Alice points to a blurry spot on the sonogram. “You actually can. It’s called the cranial notch.” Alice switches the papers so that the female sonogram is on top. She points to a similar-looking spot. “For a female, it’s called the caudal knot. It’s defined by the clitoris.”

Astrid nods, still staring at the picture. “I find it oddly hot when you list medical terms.” She pauses, then says, more serious, “I can’t believe this thing is in my uterus right now.”

“I know.” Alice inspects Astrid’s face. Her eyebrows are furrowed in concentration, but Alice cannot piece together any more emotions. “Are you happy?”

Astrid runs her finger down the middle of the sonogram. “Very.” She looks Alice in the eye. Alice still cannot piece together Astrid’s current emotion, but her eyebrows are unfurrowed and her eyes are soft and almost Bambi-like instead of hard. “Have I told you I love you?”

Love is a big word, but it feels so easy for Alice to say. “No. But I love you, too.”

Astrid rests her head on Alice’s shoulder. “I’m not going to be like my mom, right?”

Alice kisses the top of Astrid’s head gently. “I told you. You love too hard for that.”

Softly, Astrid says, “You’re going to be an amazing mom, too, you know.”

“I love you,” Alice says because now, that feels like an appropriate response for every single thing that comes out of Astrid’s mouth.

****  
 _Four months pregnant_

Alice and Astrid lie in bed, Astrid’s head resting on right above Alice’s baby bump. Cuddle time is now an everyday occurrence.

Alice flips through a baby naming book. “Asher?”

“If we all have alliterative names, I’m pretty sure we’ll wake up one day trapped inside of a sit-com and we’ll spend eternity with a laugh track playing after every word we say.”

“Alliterative names might be catchy.”

“I will leave you,” Astrid threatens, snuggling closer.

“Fine. Helen.”

“Is she going to be born in the 1920s?”

“It was actually the most popular in the 1890s.”

“You know that’s worse, right?”

“Olivia?”

“A girl in my elementary school was named Olivia. She stole my pen. I never forgave her.”

“Jasmine?”

“That’s a stripper name.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a stripper.”

“Yes, but your name shouldn’t be your stripper name. They should be different.”

“She’s also a Disney princess,” Alice points out.

“That’s what makes it such an appealing stripper’s name. Who doesn’t want to get off to the fantasy of an animated princess?”

Alice raises an eyebrow. “You have the weirdest kinks.”

Astrid shrugs. “Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, I pretend you’re Rapunzel.”

“Oooh, Rapunzel,” Alice says, flipping to the R’s in her baby-naming book.

“You are not naming our child after my secret sexual fantasy. I draw the line there.”

****  
 _Six months pregnant_

Alice paces in front of the front door. She had dimmed the lights and lit thirty-one candles of varying heights and placed them all on the dining room table for a romantic ambiance. _Friends_ -style.

Alice hopes it’s romantic enough.

The door creaks open, and Alice freezes. Astrid walks in, wearing a tight black dress with a string of pearls, a hot pink cardigan, and fishnet stockings. Pregnancy in no way halted Astrid’s sense of style.

Astrid closes the door behind, and her eyes move from Alice with her forced smile to the thirty-one candles and back to Alice. “Why are there a million candles on our dining room table?”

“There’s only thirty-one.”

“Okay, but why?”

Alice takes a step closer to Alice so that she can look into Astrid’s eyes as she speaks. Her hands are shaking and sweating so badly, but she hopes Astrid doesn’t notice.

“Astrid, before I met you, I thought that I had to take what I was given, accept my lot in life, and make lemonade out of lemons, so to speak. I was good at making lemonade, but I wasn’t happy. You taught me that sometimes, the best thing to do in life is run away. Because you deserve better than the life, the lemons, you were given.

“Well, that’s true, but I’m never running away again. Because you are my new life, and I would never want anything else. You aren’t lemons or lemonade, Astrid; you are my whole damn world, and I never want to be apart from you.” Alice reaches into the pocket of her tweed skirt and pulls out a ring. “Make me the happiest woman ever and never run from me, Astrid.”

Astrid’s eyes are tearing up. “You got me a princess cut.”

“You told me that was your favorite.”

“I didn’t get you an engagement ring,” Astrid apologizes as if she is somehow breaking from proposal tradition by not getting Alice a ring in exchange.

“That’s okay.”

“I want to get you one.” Astrid takes Alice’s left hand gently and inspects her ring finger. “You’d look really good with a trillion cut.”

Alice holds up her right hand, which is still holding the engagement ring. “So you’ll marry me?”

“I’ll marry you,” Astrid says, a half-smile playing on her lips. Alice can hear _you’re an idiot; did you really think I’d say no?_ even though Astrid doesn’t say it.

Alice slips the ring on Astrid’s finger and stares into Astrid’s blue eyes. She loves this girl so much.

****

_Eight months pregnant_

By this point, both of their stomachs look like they are about to explode. Alice has gained a lot of weight all over her body, but Astrid stays petite besides from a stomach that extends far beyond its normal reach.

Alice sits on the couch, feet on the coffee table in front of her, studying for tomorrow’s test, while Astrid sits next to her, legs tucked under her body, watching some murder mystery and eating ice cream.

“The wife obviously did it,” Astrid says, pointing her spoon at the TV. “She didn’t do a good job. Who doesn’t hide the murder weapon? Amateur.”

Alice snaps, “Will you shut up?” Astrid raises her arms in mock surrender, spoon still in hand. Alice sighs. “I’m sorry, Astrid. I’m just stressed. This professor is impossible. Last test, I should have gotten a perfect score, but he marked me off for using a blue pen. Who does that? It’s not like it’s a red pen either. It’s blue. A blue pen is perfectly acceptable.”

Astrid puts the spoon back in her bowl of ice cream and moves the bowl to the coffee table before scooting closer to Alice and placing a hand on her thigh. “I can make the stress go away.”

Alice makes a soft sound under her breath. It could count as arousal, appreciation, or consent or, preferably, all of the above. She leans forward to capture Astrid’s lips in a kiss when…

their stomachs hit each other. Alice scoffs. Co-pregnancy is just something queer girls should never do, Alice decides. Sex is literally impossible when they cannot get closer than three feet to each other and when they can barely move. Astrid is slightly more nimble, but it hurts when Alice stands up or even makes a sudden movement. She can’t even walk anymore; all she can do is waddle.

Astrid moves her hand farther up Alice’s thigh. “This is all I can do.”

Alice moans. “Good enough.”

****  
 _Nine months pregnant_

“No thank you, I’m good,” Alice says with a pained smile after a nurse offers her an epidural. The nurse shrugs and continues monitoring Alice’s vitals.

Astrid, though, stares at Alice as if she’s insane. “‘No thank you, I’m good?’ This isn't like when the waitress offers you avocado on your salad and it really makes no difference to the actual quality of the salad. This is actually going to make a difference in the next couple of hours of your life."

“Even though it's very rare, I don't want to increase the odds of fetal distress.” She tries to keep a smile back, but then her face explodes into one. She leans closer to Astrid as if to tell a secret, and says, quickly in that way that means she’s super excited, “Plus, the doctor in me really wants to know what a natural birth feels like.”

Astrid scoffs. “Cut it with the hippie-dippy crap that you must have absorbed from Infinity and take the damn drugs. It’s not like you haven’t done them in college anyways.” A nurse quickly looks away as if to have plausible deniability, and Astrid’s eyes center and narrow on her. “What, like you never snuck in after work to try some. We all have.”

Alice rolls her eyes. “Astrid, I know what I’m doing.”

****  
 _An hour later_

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she screams, pushing as the doctors tell her to and the world roars around her.

“I told you to take the drugs,” Astrid says calmly, sitting next to Alice and strolling through her phone.

“Fuck you, Astrid. I hope your birth hurts like fucking hell.”

“It won’t because I’m going to take the drugs,” she half-sings without looking at Alice.

“Just shut up and give me your goddamn hand and witness the beautiful birth of our child.”

Astrid complies, but she grimaces. “You’re all sweaty.”

Alice turns on Astrid with hot rage. “I’m giving birth, you motherfucker.”

“Technically, we’re both motherfuckers.” With her free hand, Astrid points to their dual bellies. “Because-”

“I get it,” Alice growls, then breaks off into a howl as the nurse screams at her to push.

****  
 _Three days later_

“I didn’t notice during my birth because of the pain, but it’s quite fascinating what’s going on down there.”

“Alice,” Astrid says slowly, “if you don’t stop looking at my vagina when I am pushing our fucking daughter out of it, you are never allowed to touch it again.”

“That’s more of a punishment for you.”

“Oh no, I’ll _make_ it a punishment for you.”

Alice almost laughs, but she squeezes Astrid’s hand gently instead. “Anything for you.” She pauses. “Does it really not hurt?”

Astrid shrugs. “It’s like period cramps. Drugs are the best.”

“You are going to make the best mother,” Alice says, half sarcastically and half in wonder of her beautiful wife.

****  
 _Half a day later_

Astrid stares at the baby girl in her arms. “Is it weird that I think she looks like you?”

“As a future doctor, yes. That would be an impossibility. But as a mother-” Alice snuggles the tiny baby boy in her arms closer to her chest “-it makes total sense.”

The two are squished on a single hospital bed. They were definitely not made for two people. Hospitals should definitely expand their horizons and invest in queen-sized beds for maternity wards as there is obviously a surplus of queer girls having their babies from the same father at the same time. It just makes logical sense.

Alice likes the lack of space, though, even though Astrid only got out of labor one nap ago and one shower ago and that shower really did not help with the stench of sweat. The sweat doesn’t matter because Alice hasn’t had enough cuddle time over the last few days due to, you know, childbirth, and she has missed Astrid’s warmth.

As if reading her mind, Astrid sets her head down on Alice’s shoulder. Alice smiles down at her. Just like Alice, she’s in sweats and her wet hair is up in a messy bun and she looks ready to collapse. Alice is so goddamn lucky.

Alice notices, on the far wall, that it is after two in the morning. “You should go to sleep,” Alice says, gently nudging Astrid with her shoulder.

“A couple more minutes,” Astrid says, gazing lovingly down at her daughter. She nudges Alice’s shoulder. “Switch?”

Alice nods, and after some maneuvering, she winds up with her daughter in her arms. She stares at the baby; she’ll never get used to how tiny or fragile these things are. She expected something bigger or sturdier even after all the birthing videos and baby books she read.

“Is it weird I’d die for them?” Alice asks.

“No. I’d kill for them.” Astrid examines the baby boy in her arms. “He looks like you, too.”

“That one makes genetic sense,” Alice says.

Astrid nuzzles closer to Alice and kisses her neck gently. It’s barely a graze, and Astrid is so tired, Alice is pretty sure Astrid didn’t even realize she kissed Alice. It was an unconscious decision. Against her neck, Astrid says, “I’m never running away again, you know.”

Alice kisses Astrid’s forehead, a conscious decision to show her love. “You know I love you, too.”


End file.
